


Toy Soliders, Marching Endlessly

by primaryglitch



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: many more characters will be added as the chapters progess.
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-28
Updated: 2020-08-28
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22697491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/primaryglitch/pseuds/primaryglitch
Summary: There is no beauty or glory in war. Yet those who fought have tried again and again to gain solace, to express their suffering both as memories and omens. It is easy to forget those lost, and even easier to forgot those who survived.
Kudos: 12





	1. When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead

**Author's Note:**

> I have always had such an affection for modernist poetry that resulted from WWI and star wars. With this compilation of combining such poetry with the tragedy of the clones, I hope to be able to express the effects of wars on the men made only to be soldiers that were forced to fight a war that was never theirs in the first place.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ghosts of brothers fallen haunt those who remained. But no matter how hard one would try, their hands would never reach thme.

The Kaminoans raised him, but there was no love in their care. They only facilitated their growth, forming them into the perfect soldiers and nothing more. The only companionship Rex found was within the other clones. They all looked so similar to him, but they weren’t him. Each was his own person, distinct from each other. Each a chance for him to learn about another. He memorized their likes and dislikes, their strengths and weaknesses. They came to call each other brothers yet they shared more than just a father. They were kindred souls, and at times, Rex could believe they were all pieces of the same soul. That together, they were whole; that together, they would thrive. The Kaminoans provided for them, but his brothers were the ones he could depend on. He loved them, truly and wholly loved them. As time passed, he couldn’t possibly imagine being without any of them.

However, the Kaminoans didn’t want the loyalty of the clones to each other but for the Republic. As the perfect soldiers, they had grown to naturally believe that following the orders of the Republic was their duty, but it didn’t lessen the love they had for each other. It never surpassed the bond each of them held for their brothers.

But then they were sent off to war. At first, he thought it was for glory and justice, but what came was bloodshed and battlefields turned mass graves. Battle after battle, death after death, he learned how naive and wrong he was to have ever entertained the childish hope that they would always be together, no matter what.

_ When you see millions of the mouthless dead _

_ Across your dreams in pale battalions go, _

As the war waged on, their losses mounted. From Geonosis to Mandalore, his brother became seas of blood, each drop carving away at his heart. On each battlefield, his brothers laid like wildflowers. Within space, they floated in the vast expanse and were vaporized into stardust. No matter how successful or celebrated, they were always tragedies big and small that outsiders could never see. The Jedi, the delegates, even the simple civilians all got funerals, yet never his brother. They were left to mourn in silence, they could only mourn in their dreams.

What were once nightmares became just dreams, so common that to not see thousands of bloodied battalions fall was unheard of. Their amour was decorated with each of their souls, unique in their own way, but when pained in blood they all looked the same.

_ Say not soft things as other men have said, _

_ That you'll remember. For you need not so. _

Each battlefield burned into his mind. For each statistic, he saw legions of his brothers looking back at him. He promised to himself and his brothers that they would always remember, but how could they when the next battle would always bring more to their end? What comfort was there each of them knowing that once dead, it would become impossible to recall each of their faces, each of their souls?

War was unforgiving and cruel, never fostering the soft comforts of a promise held.

_ Give them not praise. For, deaf, how should they know _

How could he tell them that they died a noble death for the Republic when they were already gone and his praise could never reach them? His brothers dropped like dominoes in mass, far too many to cradle and comfort in their dying breathes. Far too many stuck down without a thought, from machines or men.

_ It is not curses heaped on each gashed head? _

The battlefields were their only graveyards, their only place of rest. Walking by, he would see their bodies disfigured. He would see helmets smashed concave, bent or worst- broken and shattered to expose their skulls. He would see limbs strained from blaster bolts and others amputated by heavy fire. He would see chestplates shattered, exposing the viscera. Each an omen, a reminder of the prospect of a grievous injury or painful death to come. Each screaming at him that he was cursed to end the same, that they all are.

_ Nor tears. Their blind eyes see not your tears flow. _

Their grief was invisible, their pain oppressed by the expectations they must fulfill. They were to be the perfect soldiers bred for war, not for compassion. They would keep their helmets on, hiding their moments of weakness from their brothers. Their brothers needed to see him strong, and the dead did not crave the grief that could never reach them. Rex treasured his helmet at first for it could hide his tears. But it was not long before his eyes always remained dry. His tears meant nothing to his lost men, they would never see his weeping. So instead he remained firm, a picture prefect soldier. A fixed point for all his brothers, to lead them to dry their own tears.

_ Nor honour. It is easy to be dead. _

All for the glory of the Republic, but none for the glory for his brother. However, he envied them at times, for they no longer had to carry the burden of memories. They no longer had to dream of the ones they lost and the ones they could have saved. Of the ones they were forced to leave behind, dead or alive. They no longer had to suffer through the horrible amalgamation of memories of the past and worries of the future.

_ Say only this, “They are dead.” Then add thereto, _

_ “Yet many a better one has died before.” _

The names and memories of his dead brothers would mingle with those new, of lives so similar and death just as. For each shinny dead, there was a veteran more decorated who fell all the same. For each veteran, there was a shinny far more idealist that not only recited but fully believed in justice and glory of the Republic. But death made them equals, made them the same. Just another clone dead to replace.

_ Then, scanning all the o'ercrowded mass, should you _

_ Perceive one face that you loved heretofore, _

In shinnies, from the vast sea of replacement that would flood into the 501st, he saw reflections. In the ones that had far too much bravery, he saw Hardcase. In the ones that were gentle and too kind for war, he saw Waxer. In the ones who believed so firmly in the Republic and their generals in the way Rex could now only pretend to do, he saw Dogma. In the ones who could never blindly believe and asked too many questions, he saw Fives. He saw so many others, so many of those who he had known, who he had loved.

_ It is a spook. None wears the face you knew. _

_ Great death has made all his forevermore. _

But they were gone, and they would never return. Death took his brothers that he had held so close and it took his brothers which he had barely a chance to know. War had beckoned death, no matter how often he pleading for it to yield. No matter how skilled or how brave, he could never succeed in challenging death to give his brothers back. The horsemen, who rode upon speeders to battleships, carrying all from blasters to turbolasers, would tear his brothers from him. And he would never be able to make them his once more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead" is a poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley, who was enlisted in the British army and fought in the trenches of France. At age 20, he was killed at the Battle of Loos. "When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead" was his last poem, which was found in his kitbag. This poem among with others of his was published after his death in "Marlborough and other Poems" in 1916.
> 
> The words from his poem is writing in italics, and I do urge you to look into Charles Hamilton Sorley and his other works.


	2. In Flanders Field

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battles are endless just as vast of those who have fallen. and their expectations fall onto the living.

_In Flanders fields the poppies blow_

_Between the crosses, row on row,_

_That mark our place; and in the sky_

_The larks, still bravely singing, fly_

_Scarce heard amid the guns below._

There was often no proper send off for their brothers, their armor recycled and their bodies salvaged for parts. They all tried to forget that fact after watching their dead be carried off, unable to shake the chill that it sent up their spines, unable to silence the thought that they were being scraped and salvaged like droids. 

Yet for the most part, their helmets remain. If the rapidly changing designs or simple sentimentality is to blame, the clones were often allowed to keep the helmets of their brothers. Some kept with as memorabilia others adopted them as their own, but most left them. Most found a quiet place if they could, nestled away from the war and placed their brother’s helmet to rest. A vacation, some would joke. A place to rest, others would respond.

It wasn’t rare to return to planets or even to return to the same battlefield, but he had never before seen so many helmets in one place, discarded- not placed. Low in the valley where the land flattened out, there was a field. The midday sun caught on the helmets, illuminating each of their differences. Their paints and scores and battle scars. This land was as hollow as one could be for clones.

However, the droids knew not. They had marched over it and the clones, loyal to obey the orders of their general, marched forth to met them. On this land, blood was spilled once against. Their bodies fell to the ground, joining the ones departed

The wildflowers beneath were bright and beautiful. In their scent, he swore he could smell the sweetness of the vormur. But its sweetness became sickening as the smell of blood and death intermingled. In the sky flew the native birds, white as could be. Their songs were swallowed by the firefight below, but they remained through it all. This field held so much beauty and death that they were impossible to separate.

_We are the Dead. Short days ago_

_We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,_

_Loved and were loved, and now we lie,_

_In Flanders fields._

Within the landscape there was a mixture of helmets, perhaps those even from the very beginning, to those new as if had been laid that day. In their helmet, he saw the stories of their deaths, in the firefight, he heard them. He knew those stories all too well, with only the lucky falling fast. Within the time he shared with his own brothers, in the barracks, on the battlefield, in the rare times of rest, those stories he held so dear. He loved his brothers and they loved him, and he knew the fallen had been loved all the same.

In a way, it was haunting to know that the fallen could easily have been him and will as easily become him. In a way, it was comforting to know that the clones that came after, even those who would not know his name, would fondly down upon him.

_Take up our quarrel with the foe:_

_To you from failing hands we throw_

_The torch; be yours to hold it high._

_If ye break faith with us who die_

_We shall not sleep, though poppies grow_

_In Flanders fields._

Those who survived always carried the biggest burdens. The weight of the fallens’ lives, of their dreams, of their deaths. Their helmets, likely empty, yet store at him as they marched forward, slowly and slowly pushing the droids back. Clones never got to make peace with their death, perhaps that is why the fallen store back at him. They died in the name of the Republic, but they died in the arms of their brothers, in the hearts of their brothers. He couldn’t bring back the dead, but he continued the fight. Only for the republic in name, but for the silence of his brother that he had not known, of their lives cut short. 

The battle waged on, just as the war. Days in, days out. Days new, days old. One day the landscape with once again overcome their remains, their helmets swallowed, but their memory and fight will remain and his duty not done.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "In Flanders Field" was written by John Mccrae, who was a poet, doctor, and solider. He served in both the Boer War and WWI. "In Flanders Field" was written as a response to to Belgium's Ypres salient in April of 1915 after the death of a close friend and from treated the wounded for 17 days.

**Author's Note:**

> "When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead" is a poem by Charles Hamilton Sorley, who was enlisted in the British army and fought in the trenches of France. At age 20, he was killed at the Battle of Loos. "When You See Millions of the Mouthless Dead" was his last poem, which was found in his kitbag. This poem among with others of his was published after his death in "Marlborough and other Poems" in 1916.
> 
> The words from his poem is writing in italics, and I do urge you to look into Charles Hamilton Sorley and his other works.


End file.
